Someone on Capitol Hill is going to have to give in, if Democrats truly want to put President Donald Trump on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors in a presidential election year.
With Congress now on its holiday break, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still hasn't sent Trump's articles of impeachment over to the Senate, the next step in an impeachment trial.
"Look, we're at an impasse," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the BBC. "We can't do anything until the speaker sends the papers over, so everyone enjoy the holidays."
Despite Democrats' professed sense of urgency in passing House impeachment articles against the president, Pelosi has delayed sending the charges over to the Senate. Pelosi is demanding information from the Senate on how it plans to conduct Trump's trial and hopes to give Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York more leverage in talks with McConnell.
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But the White House, according to The Associated Press, believes Pelosi won’t be able to hold out much longer, and the impasse between the Senate leaders leaves open the possibility of a protracted delay until the articles are delivered.
Pelosi also has refused to name the House managers who will handle the Senate trial until Senate leaders meet her demands.
A separate-but-related fight flared Monday in the courts, where the House Judiciary Committee held open the possibility of adding to the articles of impeachment against Trump depending on whatever testimony it can obtain from former White House counsel Don McGahn.
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A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments Jan. 3 on whether to force McGahn to comply with the subpoena.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed McGahn well before the start this fall of an impeachment inquiry centered around Trump's request to Ukraine's president that he investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son, as well as an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory alleging Ukraine's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
McConnell has not ruled out calling witnesses but also indicated he was in no hurry to seek new testimony, either. Schumer responded any trial without witnesses would be a “sham.”
“Let’s put it like this: If there are no documents and no witnesses, it will be very hard to come to an agreement,” Schumer told the AP on Monday.
Schumer is also demanding witnesses who refused to appear during House committee hearings, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.
McConnell has secured Republican support for his plans to impose a framework drawn from the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton.
“We haven’t ruled out witnesses,” McConnell said Monday in an interview with “Fox and Friends.” “We’ve said let’s handle this case just like we did with President Clinton. Fair is fair.”
Schumer is arguing the circumstances in the Trump trial are different from those of Clinton’s.
Trump is only the third sitting president in American history to be impeached, joining Andrew Johnson and Clinton.
The two articles of impeachment by House Democrats − abuse of power and obstruction of Congress − point to Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate 2020 political rival Joe Biden while withholding as leverage military aid the country relies to counter Russia as well as his efforts to block the House investigation.
The Constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict in an impeachment trial, thus making Trump’s actual removal from office highly unlikely in the GOP-controlled Senate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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